The Unplowed Sky (33 page)

“Do you know that means you'll probably never see me again?”

“I didn't think I would.” Jackie looked miserable. “I thought you was dead, Mama.”

“At least kiss me.”

Jackie endured her embrace, but he didn't return it. She walked out quickly and didn't look back. “I hope you're satisfied!” she said to Hallie. “Milford and I would give him a lovely modern home and a college education. If he stays with you, he'll likely be a hired hand breaking his back for board and thirty dollars a month.”

“He wants to be an engineer,” Hallie said. “And he'll go to college if he wants to.” She hesitated. “I hope you will decide to try to be his friend.”

Felicity got in the Cadillac and slammed the door. “I'll never be your friend!” she almost screamed. “And if you get pregnant by some threshing hand or that Garth MacLeod people have told me about, don't crawl to me for help!”

She drove off as fast as the bumpy lane allowed. Hallie stayed on the porch till she stopped trembling from anger and tension. Then she went inside and got a cold wet cloth for Meg to press to her eyes.

“I was scared she'd make me go,” Jackie sniffled.

“No. She won't do that. When she has time to think it over, she'll be glad you're happy here.”

Jackie still looked doubtful. Meg gave him a fierce hug. “Don't worry, Jackie! No one's going to take you away. Now go wash your face. The Donnellys will be here any minute.”

Indeed, at that very moment, the familiar chug could be heard. Hallie put more coal in the stove and began to set the big oval table in the front room.

That had been an awful row with Felicity, but Hallie was beginning to be glad it had happened. Jackie had a chance to choose today. He hadn't been a helpless child to be disposed of like an inconvenient puppy. In a way, it cleaned the slate.

It was easier to understand Meg's jealousy of Garth. She must be terrified of losing him, too. Even if Garth ever got over his distrust of women, Hallie was afraid Meg wouldn't.
Take the wild-goose view
, thought Hallie, and went to welcome the Donnellys, a flame-haired tide, who swarmed into the house and filled it with laughter, greetings, and savory food.

XVII

When the men left for Texas it had seemed forever till Christmas, but with Thanksgiving over, the days flew. “
We'll only be able to stay a couple of days,”
wrote Garth, “
but we'll be there unless a blizzard piles up ice and snow we can't get through. It'll be great to see my girl, Meg. I hope your legs are stronger and you'll be able to walk before long
.”

“I don't know why I can't,” Meg said angrily. “When I push the chair around, it doesn't feel like I'm putting much weight on it. But when I try to take a step—” She bit her lip, and tears glinted in her eyes.

“You
are
better,” Hallie encouraged. “Keep your legs strong, and maybe all of sudden you'll walk before you know it.”

Meg gave her a withering look, then sniffed and asked, “What's that you're making?”

“Coffee caramels in one pot, butterscotch in the other, and gingersnaps and another fruitcake in the oven.”

“Daddy always buys our Christmas candy.”

“Yes, but homemade is fun. Besides, I want to make up a nice box for the Donnellys and a big tin each for Shaft, Rory, and your father to take back to Texas. Wouldn't you like to send Luke and his family a box of goodies?”

“Yes!” Meg cried, but then looked glum. “It's not much fun if I can't help make things.”

“Oh, I think you can. Candy takes an awful lot of stirring. You can sit on the stool to do that, and you can mix up batter if I bring the ingredients to you.”

Meg started to protest as she automatically did at any suggestion of Hallie's, but then she thought it over. Her face brightened. “I can do a lot, can't I? Will you let me look at your recipe book and pick out what to make for Daddy and Luke?”

Hallie passed it over. “One thing they'll all like is sugared almonds. I had the Donnellys buy twenty pounds of them, and filberts and walnuts and peanuts, too.”

“Then we can make peanut brittle,” said Meg, scanning the pages. “I know Luke likes that. Can we make fudge?”

Hallie nodded. “Pfeffernusse are good, too. They're crunchy ball-shaped German cookies that keep for weeks. We need to make them now to have them ready for Christmas.”

“I want to help!” Jackie begged.

“Wonderful! We've got peanuts to shell and nuts to grind. And when the pfeffernusse are baked, you can roll them in powdered sugar.”

The kitchen was full of good smells, and working together took away some of Meg's prickliness. “Maybe I could send some candy to Miss Howell,” she said. “She's been nice to write out my homework assignments and take so much trouble grading my papers.”

“We're going to have a dozen kinds,” said Hallie. “When they're all ready, you could make a box with some of each. I guess Rory has a sweet tooth. There are lots of nice empty chocolate boxes on the top shelf of his wardrobe. I shouldn't think he'd mind if we use those, especially if he gets a big one.”

At different times, the three of them pored over the Sears catalog and sent off their orders. Hallie told Jackie he could spend eight dollars on presents—he had earned it by helping in the cookshack. He and Meg ordered Shaft a quality meerschaum pipe with a “genuine imported amber mouthpiece” in a silk-lined case with his name imprinted in gold.

“Let's not have Milov Hurok on it,” Meg said. “Let's just ask them to print ‘Shaft' in the biggest letters they have.”

Jackie bounced in agreement and turned pages rapidly to the section he knew best; toys and games. “Let's get toys for Rusty's kids. They're gonna feel bad that he's not there.”

As Jackie would miss his own father? Though after the summer with the threshing crew, Robert Meredith's death must seem long ago, the holiday was bound to call up memories; for, though very ill, Robert had still been alive last Christmas. Since then, Jackie had lost both parents.

He had said nothing to Hallie about his mother but one day she heard him say to Meg in a puzzled way, “I thought Mama was dead. She's not. But I still feel like she is.”

Meg nodded. “That's how I felt about my mother. I'm glad she never came back. There would have been no way to be sure she wouldn't leave again.”

Jackie said solemnly, “Mamas hadn't ought to go off, had they? Not unless they die and can't help it, like Daddy did. Mrs. Donnelly wouldn't never, ever leave Bridgie and Kathleen. Would she?”

“Of course not, Silly Billy!”

“I'm not Billy!”

“Then,” teased Meg, “of course not, Wacky Jackie!”

He collapsed in giggles. It was good that they could talk to each other about their mothers, though it made Hallie feel more than ever like an outsider. She was making out her catalog order: warm house slippers and a plaid flannel shirt for Shaft; lumberjack-style sweater jackets for Rory and Garth and Luke; a cozy bathrobe of blanket fabric for Meg and red felt ankle-high slippers with plush trim; and for Jackie a dump truck that dumped, a steam shovel that scooped up and unloaded dirt, a harmonica, a big box of crayons, and
Billy Whiskers, Puss in Boots, Robin Hood
, and several Peter Rabbit books. She also ordered him new clothes, letting him choose colors and styles.

“These aren't my Christmas presents, are they?” he asked suspiciously.

“No,” Hallie assured him. “I always hated it when I got clothes for presents. Now, what kind of cap would you like?”

“One that comes down over my ears!”

“This corduroy one does. You need some mittens. And maybe you ought to have some lace-up boots for going after the mail.”

“That pair has a knife! Can I have them, Hallie? Can I?”

“
May
you.” The boots were $3.98—twice the cost of regular shoes—but she couldn't refuse him. Besides his birthday came just a few days before Christmas. “You'll have to promise to keep the knife folded up and in its pocket when you're not using it.”

“Promise! Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye—”

“Jackie! Don't say things like that. It's good enough to promise—and remember. You need some other shoes, too. Let's measure your foot and send that along.”

He tugged her into the front room and whispered, “I want to get Meg something nice. Do I got some money left?”

He didn't. The meerschaum pipe alone had cost six dollars. But he would learn about money soon enough. “You pick out what you think she'd like, and I'll put it on my order,” Hallie said. “You can just point in the catalog, and I'll write it down. That way it'll be a surprise.”

His delighted grin faded into a worried look. “Hallie, we—we forgotted, Meg and me. We forgotted to order you something!”

Hallie braced against the stabbing pang, but she couldn't check the bitter thought,
Everyone but me, when I've stayed here and taken care of her
. “Make my present,” she suggested. “I'd much rather have that.”

“If I have enough money, you could order you one.”

She bent to kiss him. It wasn't often these days she had much chance to do that except at bedtime. “Honey, you haul kindling and coal. That's the best kind of present. But if you want to put something under the tree, draw a nice picture or make something.”

“Are we gonna have a tree?”

She had supposed they would, without thinking of where it would come from. “Let's ask Meg if they usually do. But first pick out what you want to get her.”

“I know!” Jackie beamed, flipping pages. “She keeps looking at this wristwatch and says she hopes her daddy gets it for her next birthday.”

Hallie restrained a gasp at the price. The six-jeweled white-gold case with a gold-filled expansion bracelet cost $12.75, almost two weeks of Hallie's wages. “It's pretty expensive, honey, but we can manage if you'll let it be from both of us, and I cross off the robe and slippers I was getting her.”

“I wish I could buy it all by myself.”

“You could get her a necklace or perfume or—”

Jackie puckered his brow and sighed. “All right. Let's give her the watch from both of us.”

The orders were mailed, and the three of them began to fill boxes with candy and sugared nuts. A five-pound box went to Luke, and Hallie sent a three-pound assortment to the MacReynoldses.

These were scarcely sent when gifts began to arrive from the crew. Henry Lowen sent a crate of winesap apples and a note hoping that Meg could walk again. He also announced his marriage to Anna and said he hoped to make the summer threshing run with the MacLeods. Baldy Tennant's gift to Hallie, Meg, and Jackie was a big box of Hershey's almond bars with a card that read DO
OPEN BEFORE CHRISTMAS!
From Buford Redding came a thousand-piece jigsaw-puzzle map of the world. Large packages from Rich Mondell and Jim Wyatt contained brightly wrapped individual gifts for the children and Hallie.

“These should go under the tree,” said Hallie, pleased and touched at being remembered by the men. “Do you put up a Christmas tree, Meg?”

“No. We just put our presents on the table Christmas morning and open them before breakfast.” For once Meg didn't sound as if the established way was best. She even looked excited. “Could we have a tree? For Jackie?”

“We'll ask the Donnellys to buy us a little evergreen that we can plant in the yard later,” promised Hallie.

“And some candy canes?” Jackie asked. “Red and white ones?”

“I'll make a star for the top,” Meg said. “I've been saving foil off the Hershey bars.”

“We can string popcorn and cranberries,” added Hallie.

The Donnellys found a pretty little pine tree at the nursery, and Mike carried it into the front room and set it on the apple crate Hallie had covered with red oilcloth. Meg arranged presents artfully to conceal the container. Jackie hung candy canes, and Hallie helped Meg fasten the foil-covered cardboard star on top. The children draped the cranberry and popcorn garlands and picked the best spots for the other foil-covered stars and bells they had made.

“It's—it's beautiful!” Meg breathed, settling back in the wheelchair to admire her work. “Oh, I hope Daddy likes it!”

He will as long as he doesn't think it was my idea, Hallie thought. She said aloud, “Now that we have the men's addresses, we can send them each a box of candy and nuts—and write thank-you notes for the things that weren't wrapped.”

A few days later, Jackie puffed down the lane with a parcel that almost filled his wagon. It was from Luke and Mrs. Wells. When the children pulled away the crumpled newspapers, Meg looked puzzled. “Is it part of a tree root?”

Hallie helped lift it out. Rough outer bark had been left on a half-dome—shaped tree growth glued to a slab of rough cedar to form a sort of cavern. It was stuffed with what looked like corn shucks till Meg brought out a figure that stood about five inches high: a madonna. Her body and robe were of shucks but her sweet face was red-brown clay and the long black hair looked human. She held a cornshuck baby. His face, and those of the other figures Jackie was standing on the table, were of the same warm red clay. Joseph had gray hair and so did the crowned Wise Men and one of the shepherds. The dark-haired angels had furled wings of golden straw and harps carved from wood.

The cattle and camels were natural red clay, but the sheep had curly fleece of pale wood shavings, a pair of mules were painted gray, and there was a spotted dog, a cat, and carefully painted great horned owl and several mourning doves. A star with long rays made of straw had a slit carved for it in the roof of the cavern. The cedar-bark manager was full of fragrant hay.

“Isn't it wonderful?” Meg breathed, her eyes shining. “Look, here's a drawing from Luke on this big cardboard at the bottom! He's put the whole family on the porch of their log cabin and they've signed their names. See, here's Mrs. Wells—Vinnie—and the children. The older lady next to Luke must be his mother. It says ‘Evelyn Rogers.'”